Ben nodded.
Emma’s eyes drilled into Helen, and she still gripped her arm. “He survived here for ten years. We only need to do it for another few hours. But we need to escape. Nothing is going to stop that from happening. Got it?”
“We’ll never make it.” Helen looked panicked. “You didn’t see what happened.” She tried to pull out of Emma’s grip. “Andy and I… ” She stopped dead and looked around, as if realizing for the first time her brother wasn’t with them.
“Where’s Andy?” Her voice was small.
Emma finally let her go. “We think… he decided to stay here. No, we know he decided to stay. He left us and vanished when we were just outside.”
“He left a note,” Ben said. “He wanted you to know that he loved you, and not to worry about him.”
“Oh God.” Helen grabbed her head and squeezed her eyes shut. “That little fool. Ever since he was a kid, he’d do things like this.”
“He’s not a kid now. This is what he wanted,” Ben said.
“Andy’s a dreamer. He hasn’t seen what I’ve seen,” Helen quaked out.
“Too late; he’s gone. Nothing we can do now.” Emma sat back on her haunches. “So, now we need to save ourselves.”
“We stick to the plan,” Ben said softly.
“Only one we got. And the clock is ticking,” Drake added. “Weapons check. Whatta we got?”
Ben checked the rifle he found; he wasn’t familiar with the new model but knew he could operate it. He pulled out the magazine, checked it, and then noticed the undercarriage wasn’t holding the grenade launcher. “Magazine is half-full, grenade launcher is gone. So I have a belt with three grenade cartridges and nothing to fire them with. Also a handgun that has five rounds remaining.”
“Good,” Drake said. “I’ve got two knives, M4 handgun with half a magazine, and a spare mag in my belt. I’ve also got two flares remaining.”
Emma checked her handgun, popped out the magazine, and saw there were only two rounds left. From a pouch on her thigh, she drew forth a full magazine and snapped it in, and then snapped the slide forward and back. “Full magazine, plus another full mag in my pocket, and two rounds in another. I’ve got the bush knife and three flares.” Her lips compressed. “Not much, but it’ll do.”
Drake raised an eyebrow. “It’ll have to, and it will do.”
Ben had extracted one of the copper-colored grenade rounds. He held it up — it was like a stubby bullet with a red tip. He’d never seen one like it before. “Are these DOI?”
Drake looked at him and grinned. “M203 cartridges can be DOI — detonate on impact — or air burst, incendiary, and even water detonation. We’ve come a long way in a few years, buddy.”
Ben turned the fat cartridge in his hand. It still had streaks of blood coating it, and it stained his palm red. “What sort of velocity for DOI?”
“Baseball pitch. Impact detonation, on paper, means if you can just throw ‘em hard enough, they’ll detonate. But you’ve got to have a good arm and a hard surface to strike.”
“Got it,” Ben said, resheathing the plug.
Helen turned to him. “Ben Cartwright?”
“Yep.”
“If you survived here by yourself, do you think, um, that maybe there’s a chance that Andy can too?” Her eyebrows were high, and there was real fear in her eyes.
Ben got down on one knee close to her. “Sure he can. He’s a smart guy; smarter than I am.” He smiled crookedly and patted her hand. But he didn’t believe it for a second.
She nodded back, her eyes still wide. “And then I can come back for him, like Emma did for you.” Her eyes were pleading now.
Behind him, he heard Emma exhale. “Anything’s possible.” Ben patted the woman’s hand. “Helen, I need to ask you something. It’s important.”
She looked up. “Of course; what is it?”
“We’re going to have to move quickly, climb, maybe fight; can you do that?” He waited.
“Fight?” Her brows drew together in confusion.
“Yes, fight to live.” Ben kept his eyes on hers.
“I don’t want to go back down there.” She looked away. “But I’ll do what needs to be done.”
“That’s all we can ask. Thank you.” Ben squeezed her hand and then stood. He walked to the doorway and looked out into the jungle. He had to squint now as the wind blew debris in at him. He momentarily recoiled as a long thread of lightning traveled horizontally, branching up and down like a blinding river of light.
“Not much time now.” He sucked in a breath right to the bottom of his lungs. “This is where the shit gets real.” He looked along the jungle wall and saw what he needed just in through a stand of trees. “We need to make use of every advantage we have. And every tool and weapon we have. We’re going to war, and the odds are not in our favor.”
Drake looked back to the room with the steps leading to the portal. “Might be more we can salvage down there.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Ben said over his shoulder. “I’m going to grab a few things. Be back in ten minutes. Em, can I borrow your knife?”
“No.” She scowled. “But you can borrow me and I come with a knife. You’re not going anywhere by yourself right now.”
Ben sighed. “Don’t have time to argue.” He pointed. “See that stand of trees, the larger ones with the collars of thin leaves around their base? That’s where we’re going.”
“No problem; ready when you are,” she said.
Ben turned to nod at Drake. “Ten minutes. Be ready.” He turned, took one last look up and down along the tree line, and then sprinted from the temple doorway. Emma was right beside him.
Emma beat Ben to the tree line, and immediately went down on one knee, gun up in a two-handed hold. She scanned the trees, but there didn’t seem to be anything moving. It was damn hard to tell now, she thought, as the branches whipped about and the low moan of rushing wind dominated everything.
Ben crouched beside her, also scanning the brush. She looked back at the temple; the dark mouth of the doorway was now empty as she assumed Drake and Helen were down in the basement room retrieving anything of use they could salvage from the carnage.
Good on Helen, Emma thought; couldn’t have been easy going back down after what she had seen take place.
She winced as thunder cracked, and looked up to see the boiling clouds rotating like froth in a bath about to go down the plug. They were getting down to the last hours or maybe even hour now — seconds counted.
“What do we need?” she yelled.
Ben held out his hand. “We need to cut some straight branches, some vines, and collect some of that resin.” He pointed.
She handed him the long knife. “I’ll get the vines.” She withdrew her smaller blade.
The pair worked fast. Ben hacked down five-foot trees and stripped them of their branches and leaves. Emma extracted elastic vines from around the tree trunks, and quickly scooped up some of the dark sticky resin onto broad, flat leaves.
Ben then shaped the ends of his rods, cutting a groove a few inches from the top, and then making a small notch in the top like a saddle. Emma brought him her pieces.
“I think I know where you’re going; and I like it.”
He grinned as he worked. “Every bit helps.” He took one of the grenade cartridges and sat it in the saddle at the top, rounded head as the spear tip. Ben then lashed and tied them with the vines, and finally liberally coated them with the sticky and fast-drying resin.
He examined it and handed it to Emma. “One.” He worked quickly; creating two more, and then wiped off his hands and turned to her. “Seems fitting that in this place we’re back to resorting to spears.” Ben got to his feet.